Category: Earlestown Gleanings

1891: THE SANKEY VIADUCT DIVE.

Steven Dowd
Sankey Viaduct - Tommy Burns

TOMMY BURNS’ ATTEMPTED DIVE: Completed by local Collier.Newton and Earlestown Guardian – Friday 13 November 1891 The inhabitants of Earlestown, Newton and surrounding district were considerably moved last week end by the startling announcement that Tommy Burns, the champion diver, who has gained such notoriety around Liverpool, Runcorn and district by his swimming and diving feats, would dive off the Viaduct Bridge or “Nine Arches,” on Saturday afternoon at three o’clock. The bridge is nearly 70 feet high, while the water in the canal is only about seven feet deep,…

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1875: St Johns, A New Church for Earlestown

Steven Dowd

With the church approaching it’s 150th year, I thought this newspaper account from its foundation stone ceremony would be of interest Liverpool Weekly Mercury – Saturday 07 August 1875 LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION STONE. On Wednesday, the little town of Earlestown, in the parish of Newton-in-Makerfield, was the scene of no little excitement, being the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of a new church, to be called St. John the Baptist’s, which is about to be erected in the locality. The day was observed as a general…

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The Dangers of Level Crossings

Steven Dowd
St. Helens Examiner - Saturday 23 December 1882

Saturday 23 December 1882 The enthusiasm which the new Ship Canal has evoked in commercial circles, having extended to Newton, naturally caused the mind to turn for a time to the “Sankey Canal” by way of antithesis. Not that this was the first canal made in England by any means, for the Romans, during their residence in England, cut a canal from the vicinity of their metropolis, the city of York, as appears from Drake’s Eboracum. In the year 1121, Henry I made a navigable canal of seven miles in…

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